El Chapo's wife arrested: the fall of a Mexican druglord and his billion-dollar empire

Nearly two years after her husband was sentenced to life in prison for drug trafficking with the Mexican Sinaloa cartel, Emma Coronel has been picked up at a Washington DC airport and arrested for similar offenses. Police claim the young woman (born in 1989) has always been heavily involved in the trade of substances and even helped El Chapo during his elaborate prison escape in 2015.

A former beauty queen in Mexico (with U.S. and Mexican citizenship), Emma Coronel met Joaquin 'El Chapo' Gúzman when she was 17 years old. He was 35 years older than her and already had seven children and three ex-wives. The couple married as soon as Emma turned 18 and had twin daughters.

According to U.S. federal authorities, "Coronel grew up with knowledge of the narcotics trafficking industry, and... understood the scope of the Sinaloa Cartel’s drug trafficking" when she married Gúzman. She was aware of the drug shipments and "understood the drug proceeds she controlled during her marriage to Guzman were derived from these shipments," federal court documents add.

While El Chapo stood trial in Brooklyn in 2018-2019, Coronel was "implicated directly in her husband’s criminal affairs," USA Today reports. She will now face American prosecutors and perhaps get a considerable prison sentence as well.

El Chapo is a name associated with drug trafficking and the cat-and-mouse game between a criminal and the police. El Chapo Guzmán, the Mexican drug lord caught by Mexican police in 2016 and sentenced to life by a US court in 2019, has become something of a pop culture icon.

Who is this man, what's his life story, and how did he end up in a U.S. jail? Also, how does a violent criminal become a legend on the cover of Time magazine?

Joaquín Archivaldo Guzmán Loera was born in 1954 in a small village in Sinaloa, Mexico. He got the nickname El Chapo for being short, or 'chaparro,' as they say in Mexico.

El Chapo's father was a 'Gomero,' a peasant who grew opium. As a young boy, El Chapo barely went to school. He sold oranges at a stall until he switched to growing marijuana. This was the beginning of his career in the drug trade.

El Chapo first worked for El Padrino and his Guadalajara cartel. When El Padrino was arrested, an internal gang war led to El Chapo's own Sinaloa cartel. Cocaine was his specialty. He exported it to the US in cans of jalapeño peppers.

A Mexican drug lord, El Chapo Guzman had a career littered with murders. It is impossible to know the exact number, but some sources estimated in the New York Times that there were at least 33 deaths directly ordered by him.

With his famous mustachioed profile, El Chapo was a celebrity in his territory. He dominated the Mexican state of Sinaloa and its criminal organization had business ramifications in more than a dozen countries. More than 30 companies were part of his network.

(image: IG elchapolaserie)

In 1993, El Chapo was arrested and transferred from prison to prison until he escaped in a laundry cart in 2001. He returned to his life of ostentation and walked around Sinaloa, his territory, with total impunity.

In 2014, El Chapo was arrested again. This time, he managed to escape through a tunnel that led to his cell. A year later, he escaped a near-arrest and a shootout with the police. It cost him a gun wound.

El Chapo appealed to several famous people in Mexico and the US. Actor Sean Penn went to see the drug lord while he was on the run from the police. He wrote an interview with El Chapo for Rolling Stone Magazine. The actor said he wanted to tell the story of the Mexican and American War on Drugs through the eyes of El Chapo.

Another famous acquaintance was actress Kate del Castillo. According to the Rolling Stone article by Penn, El Chapo was friends with her. He was a fan of her work and they spoke a number of times on the phone. On one occasion, they met face to face. Later, Kate del Castillo confessed that she was really frightened during that meeting, but nothing happened.

In 2016, El Chapo was definitively captured and extradited to the United States. The romance was over. Sean Penn apologized  on CBS for making an awkward interview with a criminal, and the image of Guzmán being taken into custody was probably the last original image we'll ever see of him in the media.

El Chapo was brought to court in 2019 and sentenced to life in jail for bringing 155 tons of cocaine into the country over a period of 25 years.

He was also sentenced to give up his assets worth $12.6 billion. Yes, you read that right, El Chapo had made at least $12.6 billion with his drug trade. It's an indication of how immense his criminal empire really was.

El Chapo's notoriety led to a pop culture status that resulted, among others, in a biographic drama series on Netflix. For three seasons, the show follows the career of the druglord from the 1980s to the year he got caught for the last time (2016).

El Chapo even has his own upscale clothing brand, a business run by his relatives while he sits in a Colorado jail. In January 2020, one of El Chapo's children announced that the brand was releasing its own beer. The slogan? "Drink like a Mexican kingpin."

(Image: Facebook - elchapoguzmanoficial701)